


surrounded by stories surreal and sublime

by lulla_lunekjaer



Category: The Ever Afters Series - Shelby Bach
Genre: College AU, F/F, F/M, How Do I Tag, Other, Polyamory, Pride, basically a really extended nobody is cis and straight headcanon meet-cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-27 10:17:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7614157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lulla_lunekjaer/pseuds/lulla_lunekjaer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“i walked in on you and your boyfriend making out in the upper level and now french lit is ruined for me forever AU” featuring the Triumvirate. </p><p>P.S. It's really gay</p>
            </blockquote>





	surrounded by stories surreal and sublime

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smolqueernerds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolqueernerds/gifts).



> Happy Birthday, Rain! (two months late . . . )
> 
> This is so queer I can't; 
> 
>  
> 
> title from "Love In The Library" by Jimmy Buffett  
> (look Rain it isn't from F+tM)

Normally, Lena loved the library. Roaming the endless shelves, glancing at some books before deciding otherwise and going back for them, stroking the spines of old favorites. Nodding at the ones she had read before, regretfully leaving behind the ones in her permanent collection at home. Saying good morning and goodnight to the librarian, whose short stature - along with his refusal to tell anyone his name - led to the unfortunate nickname of Rumpelstiltskin.

Normally, there was no one in the 540s row ten minutes before closing time.

Normally, they were not making out.

Normally, she would not have stared for so long before interrupting.

This was not a particularly normal night.

Lena cleared her throat once, then again, louder. They were not to be deterred.

At last, the boy moved his lips to her neck and the girl let out a soft moan. Lena couldn’t see where his hands were, but it probably wasn’t anywhere appropriate for a public library. 

Finally, the girl’s eyes fluttered open. They were nice eyes, a kind of hazel color, and for a moment Lena thought she had seen those eyes on the cover of a magazine somewhere. 

The girl giggled and was about to whisper something in the boy’s ear when she saw Lena, who would later swear that her eyes widened to the size of saucers.

“Chase. Chase, stop.” She frantically pushed him off her and started pulling her clothes back into place. 

“Is something wrong?” He scanned her face, looking for something. Lena didn’t know what, but it made him suddenly more human and less ‘guy who was making out in a library, I mean seriously. There are a million better places.’

The girl nodded at Lena, and Chase spun around to look at her. 

“Fuck, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know anyone was here, it’s almost closing anyway-”

“It’s fine, I was just hoping to, you know,” she points at the shelf behind him and he hurriedly jumped to the side. Lena pulled the book in question off the shelf and shoved it into her bag. When she moved to leave, the girl reached for her. 

“Wait, I know you from somewhere, don’t I? You’re that girl in my English class. The one that wrote the story about the inventor for the fairy tale prompt. Lena, right?”

She was a deer caught in the headlights, a bookworm between shelves and socialization.

“Um, I guess?” She tried to shrug it off, but the boy’s face suddenly lit up.

“That was you? Rory showed it to me. Well, read it to me. It was so good! I really liked that one part with the talking horse, but Rory’s allergic, so not her thing.”

Shit. Now Lena remembered where she had seen those eyes. Rory was Rory Landon, America’s Princess, Maggie Wright’s daughter. No wonder they had to come to an almost-abandoned library to make out, anywhere more exposed and it would be all over the tabloids by the next day.

Chase was still talking.

“The polyamory was the best, though. It’s not something you see a lot of in fiction, especially hist. fic, or historical-based fic, in this case. It’s always nice to see yourself represented.”

This part also made sense. Rory Landon was famous for being Maggie Wright’s daughter, but also for being Amy Stevens’. The press had had a field day over that, and then again a year later when Rory herself came out as bi. She and Chase had broken up with their other girlfriend, Adelaide Radcliffe, just over two years ago. Adelaide was reportedly now working for a fashion designer in Paris and engaged to some girl with a flower name- Rose? Daisy?

Lena realized too late that they were staring at her.

“Uh, yeah! Me too, I mean, look at me, I’m an ace black girl. I try to make places for people like me to feel normal and to identify with. It’s nice to know I’m getting somewhere.” 

Rory beamed. “Hey, it’s almost ten and I don’t want to be locked in here all night, how about we pick up this discussion again later? Maybe somewhere more comfortable? That one ice cream shop on Third? Yeah?” Lena nodded.

“Great! We’ll see you at three?”

“Yeah,” The only person with a smile wider than Rory’s was Chase.

“It’s a date, then.” He winked at her as they left. Her cheeks must have been redder than Brie Catcher’s hair, but Lena didn’t care. 

She dropped her books three times while walking back to her dorm. 

_ Rory Landon liked my story. Chase Turnleaf liked my story. People who have actual experience in poly relationships liked my story. _

They had gotten a lot of hate, and still did, but slowly, the Landon-Wright clan was making a difference in public opinion.  Brie Catcher had been assaulted while getting off a plane after speaking in defense of her stepdaughter’s “life choices.” Amy had once sliced open her hand opening a piece of hate mail with razors in it disguised as a bill. Chase had even been arrested a few times before they repealed the bathroom laws in North Carolina. 

Rory Landon was an icon.

They were in the same English class, yes, but Rory had always been crowded with other people. Some were her friends, like the girl who won the tennis scholarship, or the boy who sometimes wore a Shakespearean ruff to class and liked puns. His girlfriend, the one that was in the Little Mermaid performance art piece last year. The girl in her sociology class that wore the Some were her enemies, the girl that had gotten all up in her face about Adelaide, the boy that had yelled obscenities at Chase in the courtyard. Rory had punched him. He glared at her back every class. 

The first time she had met Rory, she hadn’t been kissing a boy in the library. She hadn’t been kissing a boy at all. She had been kissing a girl. 

Adelaide Radcliffe was also an icon, but of a different sort. She had taken the fashion world by storm, reportedly designing Solange de Chateies’ dress for the latest American state dinner. Her fiancée, Daisy Fournier, was well-known in different circles, mainly as one of the top female archers in the world.

Keifmeier College was known for three things- the outstanding number of scholarships it granted due to the entire estate of its founder being given to the college, the harshness of its dean as compared to all other staff members (most of whom knew exactly where the rumor of Dr. Grubb having had an affair with a certain French politician came from), and the high percentage of LGBT+ students. That was one of the reasons Lena had applied. That and their library, which contained original copies of Madame Benne’s  _ On the Origins of Faerie Tales _ and  _ The Scone in Moderne Day Warfare.  _

The most famous Keifmeier event was their annual Pride festival. Lena had put purple and black beads in her hair. She hadn’t planned on attending the parade. She had been on her way to the queer books stall, hoping to find something on Princess Maerwynne, of whom little was known except for her possible relationship with Madame Benne - reportedly very intimate - and her legacy as a warrior - something unknown for the time period. 

Lena quietly skirted a group of out-of town protesters only to bump into the two girls kissing in front of the man with the GOD HATES FAGS and BURN IN HELL signs. 

“Oh, god, I’m so sorry!”

“Oh, no, it’s no problem!” There was that moment of shock, like always, that Rory Landon was a real person that went to her school. “Actually, we were looking for someone to take a picture. Could you do that?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Lena took the camera from the blonde girl who had been kissing Rory. Rory was flushed and bright, shifting her weight as she adjusted her flower crown. The blonde girl licked her lips. Norepinephrine, dopamine, phenylethylamine.

“Just that button there? Yeah, that one. You got this.” Lena let out one long breath, and then Rory and the blonde girl were kissing again. Rory’s hands grabbed at her hair, silky and smooth. It must’ve taken hours to get it like that, just on the edge of messy and perfect. 

She took the picture. It would eventually make its way to Rory Landon’s facebook page, Adelaide Radcliffe’s Instagram, and Sherah Leong’s blog, and from there, not quite viral, but vital. Sherah published one of the messages she had gotten from an anonymous reader - 

_ thank you so much for that picture of rory and adelaide. i live in a small town where people get beat up for being fags and seeing them gives me hope. maybe someday i’ll be that brave. _

Lena eventually made it to the book stall, but the image of the two girls kissing remained burned on the inside of her eyes for days after.

“That one ice cream shop on Third” that Rory had suggested was legendary among Keifmeier students. Its actual name was Sarah’s Ice Cream Parlor, but the diminutive size of both the owner and the shop itself, which was always packed, led to the nickname of Thumbelina’s. It was a small but normal shop in all but two ways - first, the unfinished wall where students lined up for blocks to carve their names on graduation day, and second, Sarah’s pet sparrow. He sat on her shoulder when he could, and on his perch when she was serving customers. Sarah had worked it out with the proper officials the last time someone had thought it would be funny to cite her on a health code violation. As long as wasn’t  _ technically  _ near the food, they couldn’t write her up and Mr. Sparrow could remain the unofficial mascot. 

Rory and Chase were already there when Lena arrived. Chase had somehow managed to get his double chocolate on his nose and Rory was preoccupied trying to lick it off, so Lena ordered her own ice cream from Sarah before joining them.

“Ooh, mint, nice choice,” said Chase, whipping out a spoon from somewhere. “Can I have some?” 

Rory nudged his hand away with her own spoon. “Leave her alone, you can have some of mine.” 

He reluctantly took some of Rory’s ice cream, which was a deep red-purple, maybe cherry, Lena thought. 

She also thought that this was decidedly not a normal ice cream parlor visit. 

Rory cleared her throat, “So, Lena, last night was, ah, awkward. It was inappropriate of us and I’m sorry for putting you in that position. Chase?” She prompted him.

He looked up at Lena and swallowed. “We’ve made out in more awkward places if that makes you feel better. Like, there was this one time, when we were dating Adelaide, under a -”

“Not the place!” Rory hissed. 

“Sorry. Everything Rory said.” He returned to licking his ice cream cone. 

“It’s fine. There wasn’t any harm done, to me or the books.”

Chase nodded enthusiastically. “Now that that’s over with, we can get down to business. Are you an English major?” I could never 

Lena coughed. “Excuse me? No, engineering. I could never,” She was breathing easier now, “I could never do anything with writing as a profession.”

“An inventor, like Madame Benne? In your story?” 

Lena nodded. 

“And are you . . . similarly inclined towards relationships?”

It seemed to Lena that her entire world had gone flying out the window the moment she’d stepped into the 540s aisle in the library.

“I - ” 

“You don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to,” Rory reassured her. “It’s just, I remember you from Pride, and I was wondering, and you’re really pretty-”

“I don’t know. I, I guess so? I’ve never really dated anyone, and I know I’m ace, but I would be open to it, I guess?” There. There it was, hanging in the air between them, and suddenly Lena realized three things. 

One, she definitely wanted to date Rory Landon.

Two, she also wanted to date Chase Turnleaf.

Three, Rory Landon and Chase Turnleaf maybe wanted to date her?

Wow, Lena thought, I am really, really gay. 

Two weeks later, there are pictures of them all over the tabloids, first things like “MYSTERY GIRL SIGHTED WITH RORY, IS CHASE DONE?” then “CHASE TURNLEAF SPOTTED KISSING CLASSMATE - AND RORY’S NOWHERE TO BE SEEN” until finally “LANDON AND TURNLEAF BOTH DATING CLASSMATE.” Lena buys a copy and keeps it in her closet for years until it is dusty and forgotten about and Chase finds it while cleaning. 

He frames it for their anniversary, and it hangs in the hallway under the family picture - Chase, Rory, Lena, the two dogs, the cat, and their newborn daughter, safe in Rory’s arms. 

**Author's Note:**

> wHERE IS THE PLOT  
> WHERE IS IT  
> WHY IS SO MUCH OF THIS JUST DESCRIBING HOW QUEER EVERYONE IS  
> HOW DO HEALTH CODES WORK
> 
> I don't know the answer to any of these questions


End file.
